MOTHERS OF MEN 


DANIEL A. POLINO 




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MOTHERS OF MEN 


By 

DANIEL A. POLING 

President's Associate and Citizenship Superintendent 
of the 

United Society of Christian Endeansor 



Harrisburg, Pa. 

Publishing House of the United Evangelical Church 





Copyright 

BY 

Daniel A. Poling 
1914 


// 

DEC -I 1914 

©a.A;J88621 


Dedicated to My Mother 
and to 

The Mother oj My Children 


THE FOREWORD 

followed this address with rapt at¬ 
tention when it was first delivered. I 
earnestly wished then that everybody 
might have the uplift and pleasure af¬ 
forded by the presentation of the great 
theme,—eloquent, strong, tender, ap¬ 
pealing to reason while touching the 
most sacred place in the heart. 

was delighted when I learned that 
it was to be published in book form. Its 
perusal will make nobler men, more 
heroic women, and more loyal, home- 
loving boys and girls. 





THE MYSTERY 


All, lad with questioning eyes of deepest 
brown 

Uplifted to your mother’s wondrous 
face; 

With chubby arms that draw the dear 
head down, 

And frame the smile that lights this 
blessed place; 

TVTiat is the question in your tou¬ 
sled head? 

You rest a moment from your sturdy 

play, 

And nestle quiet in the comfort of her 
breast; 

Your parted, ruby lips—what would 
they say 

If they could tell the wonder of your 
boy heart’s quest. 

If they could lift the latch where 
only thoughts may tread? 


8 MOTHEES OF MEN 

All, lad, a moment cradled in your 
mother^s arms. 

Unmindful of your busy world, and 
bent 

Upon tbe search for that which stills 
your child alarms,— 

This is the richest boon that heaven 
sent; 

This is God’s bravest gift. His 
choicest good. 

I, too, have watched your mother’s won¬ 
drous face. 

Transfigured by the love that gave 
you birth. 

Her hand in mine, she journeyed back 
through space; 

Then in her eyes I saw a glory not of 
earth; 

My son, this mystery is Mother¬ 
hood. 


MOTHERS OF MEN 

OMEN compose music, but they 
are not musicians; they paint 



pictures, but they are not art¬ 
ists ; they find new stars, but they are 
not astronomers; they chart the rocks, 
but they are not geologists; they heal 
the sick, but they are not physicians; 
they superintend the schools of great 
cities, but they are not educators; they 
enter with success well-nigh every de¬ 
partment of human endeavor, but they 
are not administrators; they glorify the 
pulpit, but they are not preachers; they 
exert a healthy infiuence on politics, but 
they are not politicians; they contrib¬ 
ute largely toward the solution of prob¬ 
lems among nations, but they are not 
statesmen; they enter constructively 
every field of reform, but they are not 
reformers. Always they are the Moth¬ 
ers of Men. 


10 


MOTHEKS OF MEN 


THREE GROUPS. 

Concerning ^^Yotes for Women” the 
womanhood of the twentieth century is 
divided into three groups,—Suffragists, 
Anti-Suffragists, and the numerically 
greatest group, the indifferent. Either 
of the two contending groups, to suc¬ 
ceed finally, must make positive the po¬ 
tential and win to action the indiffer¬ 
ent. 

I am not a prophet, but as a plain 
reader of history I know that success 
invariably comes to the positive, con¬ 
structive movement. In their begin¬ 
nings, the great reforms of history have 
been cries of protest, uprisings of de¬ 
nunciation ; men have been merely 
against the existing order. But in the 
sure evolution of liberty, even when the 
final period of evolution has been revo¬ 
lution, before the last consummation of 
any freedom, a forward goal has been 
set, mental and spiritual attitudes have 


MOTHEES OF MEN 


11 


become positive, a constructive pro¬ 
gram has been declared, and the battle- 
cry has been changed from ^‘Don’t’’ to 
''Do/' 

The suifrage movement is positive 
and constructive. The breaking down 
of the walls of indifference is close at 
hand. Final and complete triumph is 
inevitable, and it is not far away. 

THE WHY OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT. 

But the masculine mind approaches 
the feminist movement with inquiry 
and suspicion. He is a rash man who 
attempts to analyze a woman's mind, to 
invade with even friendly intent the 
sanctity of a woman’s soul. It is my 
purpose to tread only a sure path. I 
would not engage in metaphysical re¬ 
search and philosophical dissertation. 
I would answer the question of a man's 
mind with a man's answer. 

You would say, the feminist move¬ 
ment is woman's quest for life,—larger. 


12 


MOTHEKS OF MEN 


fuller, more abundant life: it is tbe in¬ 
exorable evolution of a woman’s soul: 
it is the world-old struggle of personal¬ 
ity to realize itself. But with, state¬ 
ments such as these men grope in utter 
darkness. I search for the man’s an¬ 
swer to a man’s question. 

Education is the hope of woman-suf¬ 
frage. ^^Ye shall know the truth, and 
the truth shall make you free.” Mil¬ 
lions think they are opposed to woman- 
suffrage, when, by every finer instinct 
of their natures, they are not. 

THE MASCULINE ANSWER. 

To answer the masculine question, 
^‘Whj this feminist movement?” I 
must know woman’s dominating im¬ 
pulse, her supreme motive, her consum¬ 
ing passion. And I say, without fear 
of contradiction, that whether she bears 
children of her ovm, or mothers an¬ 
other’s, or mothers a community or a 
state, or a reform, or the world, the 


MOTHEES OF MEN 


13 


dominating impulse of womanhood is 
the mother impulse, her motive is the 
mother motive, her passion is the moth¬ 
er passion. Always it is the impulse, 
the passion of motherhood,—that her 
sons and daughters, the sons and daugh¬ 
ters of the race, shall be clean, well¬ 
bodied, of unspoiled soul, and worthy. 

WHERE I FOUND THE ANSWER. 

You ask me where I found the an¬ 
swer? The winds did not carry it to 
me. I did not read it in the stars. I 
saw it first in my mother’s eyes, but 
then it was altogether a mystery. I 
found it in the brave eyes of the match¬ 
less woman, when with uncovered soul 
she came back to me from the valley of 
the shadow of death, bearing our first¬ 
born. There in life’s holy of holies, 
with heaven embattled all about, I 
found the answer. But I did not under¬ 
stand, I did not fathom it, for it is given 
to no man fully to understand. 


14 MOTHEES OF MEN 

THE GREATEST BATTLE. 

^^The greatest battle that ever was 
fought, 

Shall I tell you where and when? 

On the maps of the world you will find 
it not;— 

’T was fought by the mothers of 
men.’’ 

’T was fought by uncrowned woman¬ 
hood; who, when the clouds of battle 
hung heavy o’er the land, drew from 
bleeding finger-tips the food for babes 
at home; who have stood with Spartan 
fortitude, unbowing, through a thou¬ 
sand gales of compromise; from whose 
wombs have sprung the empires of free¬ 
dom, and at whose breasts have nursed 
the soldiers of liberty and the leaders 
of every righteous cause since time 
began; mothers, wives, sisters, sweet¬ 
hearts, who have kindled and rekindled 
in the hearts of men the fires of truth 
and patriotism; who, with the mingled 


MOTHEES OF MEN 


15 


light of devotion and sacrifice shining 
from their eyes, have sent their sons and 
loved ones on fields of blood and greater 
fields of peace, courageous down to war. 

NOT A WHIM. 

Let no man say that the cry of wom¬ 
anhood is a sudden cry, the expression 
of a whim, the utterance of a desire just 
formed. We are at the concentric point 
of many generations: this is the con¬ 
clusion of ages. For the good of the 
race, womanhood did not ask for the 
ballot one generation too soon. 

TRIED EVERY OTHER WAY. 

She has tried every other way. She 
has turned her heart and hand to many 
promising devices. Bravely she has 
struggled through the long darkness of 
prejudice in men and tradition in wom¬ 
en. Having tested her footing thor¬ 
oughly, she knows that her face is set in 
the only way. 


16 MOTHEKS OF MEN 

She has borne the iniquities of the 
double standard; she has gathered up 
the broken bodies of her sons from off 
the plains of war; she has watched the 
virtue of her daughters burning at the 
stake of man’s lust; she has been a 
beast of burden and a slave of passion. 
From the day of Noah’s great debauch 
to this year of our Lord she has seen 
the race struggle down the years be¬ 
neath its drunken load; she has wept; 
she has prayed; she has petitioned; 
she has been a clinging vine; she has 
wooed; she has gone to the last ditch 
with sacrifice. To the unequal struggle 
she has brought every resource of her 
sex. And she has not failed. Against 
unnumbered handicaps she has greatly 
prevailed. And she will prevail! To¬ 
day her marching legions are on the 
Plains of Abraham; to-morrow the city 
falls. 


MOTHEKS OF MEN 17 

NO QUARREL. 

I have no quarrel with the man who 
says that woman’s sphere is the home. 
Nor have you. I have no quarrel with 
the man who declares that the home 
sphere is big enough to command wom¬ 
an’s whole life. I agree. But what of 
the at least seven million women in in¬ 
dustry, that have no homes, and what 
are the bounds of the modern home? 
l^Tiat of the seven million women driv¬ 
en by necessity, under conditions aris¬ 
ing in a masculine government, into 
public life? ^^It is to protect the home 
by protecting themselves that these 
workers outside the home, whether yet 
conscious of the fact or not, need the 
ballot.” 

And what are we going to do with the 
Constitution of the United States where 
it declares in Amendment XIV., Section 
1, ^^All persons born or naturalized in 
the United States and subject to the jur- 


18 


MOTHEKS OF MEN 


isdiction thereof are citizens of the 
United States and of the State wherein 
they reside. No State shall make or en¬ 
force any law which shall abridge the 
privileges or immunities of citizens of 
the United States,’’ etc.? 

It will take more than a sex prejudice 
finally to abridge freedom; it will take 
more than a sex tradition finally to de¬ 
feat liberty. And let us remember that 
a government of and for the people can¬ 
not be dy the people while half the peo¬ 
ple are debarred. I hope that I am 
enough a man to refuse any conspiracy 
of ignorance or prejudice that would 
continue the political condition by 
which women are classed with crimi¬ 
nals and aliens. 

WOMEN DIFFER FROM MEN. 

To say that women differ from men, 
that the spheres of the two sexes are 
distinct, is to state the very fundamen¬ 
tal reason for woman-suffrage. I yield 


MOTHEES OF MEN 


19 


to no man in my appreciation of those 
distinctive attributes of womanhood 
that have made her the creature of song 
and story, the adoration of brave 
knights, and always earth’s holiest in¬ 
spiration to all true masculine hearts. 
But as the words run in a fantastic tale, 
‘True, we are as you say, creatures of 
the air. True, we are born with wings. 
But didn’t we have to come down to 
earth to eat and sleep, to love, to marry, 
and to bear our young?” Men cannot 
think for women; men cannot ade¬ 
quately act for women; the most chival¬ 
rous men cannot rightly defend the 
rights of women, and the most cosmo¬ 
politan men are not able fully to supply 
the physical, mental, and spiritual ne¬ 
cessities of women. It has been well 
said: “Men cannot contribute woman’s 
wisdom to the solution of public prob¬ 
lems because they do not possess it. 
And of their legislation without wom¬ 
an’s aid, much is folly, and more, a mere 


20 


MOTHEES OF MEN 


one-eyed wisdom.’’ Mrs. Pankhurst, 
for protesting—militantly, I grant— 
but for protesting against a condition 
against which her soul revolted made 
herself liable to a sentence of fourteen 
years. On one of her many days of ar¬ 
raignment she appeared in a court 
where a fiend, convicted of an unspeak¬ 
able crime against a little girl twelve 
years old, receiving the maximum sen¬ 
tence for his offence, was returned to 
prison for two years. We do not ap¬ 
prove of militant methods, but that does 
not blind our eyes to the horrible shad¬ 
ows of such a contrast. 

Women are imperatively needed in 
the struggle for the solution of life’s big 
problems. And in the fight for human 
progress where they so gladly join is it 
the part of chivalry or wisdom to admit 
them short of fully armed? 

BOUND THE HOME. 

But the master motive and passion 


MOTHEKS OF MEI^ 


21 


of womanhood, the mother motive, the 
mother passion,—^what of it? The 
sphere of womanhood is the home, and 
to the ears of true women in comparison 
with the home, all other things are as 
the challenge of the incidental. 

But here again we are confronted by 
the facts and conditions of society, so¬ 
ciety as it is to-day. We have come out 
of the past, and the present is different! 
Agreeing that woman’s sphere is the 
home, what is the modern home? What 
are its present bounds? ^The modern 
home is not a harem, shut away from 
life around it.” And certainly it is not 
now as it was in the days when the nar¬ 
row confines of a settler cabin and clear¬ 
ing contained it. ^The modern home is 
a link in the chain of modern society, 
and as such is exposed to every peril 
which confronts society.” It is sur¬ 
rounded by the food-doper, the pedler 
of poisonous drugs, the exploiter of 
child toilers, and the cheapener of labor. 


22 


MOTHERS OF MEN 


by organized prostitution and the red- 
mawed liquor traffic. In combating 
these perils men need the help ^‘which 
wise, courageous women want to give 
and which all women owe.’’ 

^‘Man with instincts more largely self¬ 
ish, has overemphasized his symbol of 
power, the dollar. Woman, intuitive, 
keener of conscience, surer of moral 
vision, and larger of human sympathy, 
is trying to shift the emphasis upon 
humanity. Nature’s balance will be 
struck when male and female work to¬ 
gether.” 


YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY. 

Yesterday the grain from which the 
family flour was ground grew on the 
home acres, was ground in the home 
mill, and mother baked the great round 
loaves in the home oven. To-day the 
grain grows in a thousand far-away 
flelds, is ground in any one of ten thou¬ 
sand distant mills, and baked into 


MOTHEES OF MEN 23 

loaves by any pair of ten thousand more 
or less cleanly hands. 

Yesterday mother made William’s 
suit and Sarah’s dress from flax grown, 
gathered, cured, corded, spun, woven, 
designed, cut, and fashioned,—all with¬ 
in a loud halloo of the kitchen stoop. 
To-day, perhaps a haggard-eyed con¬ 
sumptive fighting for bread and breath 
in a crowded sweat-shop of a distant 
city, with bleeding fingers, bending 
close her poor diseased eyes, hastily 
stitched together the little dress your 
baby wears. 

AMUSEMENTS THEN AND NOW. 

Yesterday the children gathered in 
the great kitchen and played charades, 
or romped under the orchard trees in 
Black Man and King William, or, in 
hours of rare abandon, they danced 
^^Skipt-to-ma-loo.” To-day, every child 
of the city is menaced by the dance-hall, 
the summer garden, the low theatre, 
and a hundred other public places of 


24 


MOTHEKS OF MEN 


questionable and worse than question¬ 
able amusements. 

Yesterday we went to school on the 
hill where the schoolhouse roof was red, 
the shutters green, and the rule was the 
rule of three, and where no child was 
ever spoiled because Solomon’s warn¬ 
ing was not heeded. To-day our chil¬ 
dren find, on the road that leads to 
knowledge, car-tracks and diphtheria, 
the whims of an ever-changing educa¬ 
tional system, and, in not a few in¬ 
stances, the procurers of vice districts. 

Yesterday mother settled the child- 
labor problem with her slipper: to-day 
the solution of it is at the end of a long 
road that leads by oyster-beds and cot¬ 
ton-mills, through factories and into 
deep mines. 

The problems of a minimum and liv¬ 
ing wage for women and the traffic 
called white slavery are creatures of 
the home’s modern environment, and 
the answers to their questions must be 
present-tense answers. 


MOTHEES OF MEN 


25 


THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 

And the liquor traffic, the home’s 
fiercest, concrete foe, stands in the road 
that leads to the ultimate solution of 
every one of the vital social, economic, 
moral, and political problems of this 
tremendous human crisis. And it is 
driven out of the way only hy the ballot. 

Woman suffrage has no more unre¬ 
lenting enemy than the liquor traffic; 
the enfranchisement of womanhood 
must become a fact in government in 
spite of the liquor traffic. Call ‘^John 
Barleycorn” all the hard names in the 
vocabulary of decency and patriotism 
save one;—never call him a fool. Jack 
London in his compelling story, ^^John 
Barleycorn,” written in the form of an 
autobiography, relates that he rode 
down from his California ranch to vote 
for woman-suffrage, because he knew 
that it would be another weapon for the 
smiting of the liquor traffic. And let 


26 


MOTHEES OF MEN 


no suffragists make the mistake of si¬ 
lence in the hope of placating the 
^^trade.” May the day speedily come 
when every woman’s club, every female 
organization, in the United States, will 
stand outspokenly for a saloonless na¬ 
tion. 

Yes, the home is woman’s sphere. 
Not the home as it was—the home as it 
is. Not the simple, shaded path of yes¬ 
terday, but a toiler’s rugged road that 
leads from the door-stoop into every de¬ 
partment of human endeavor, through 
every phase of society’s unrest, and that 
girdles the globe. For to-day the four 
posts of the home are the four corners 
of the earth. 


THE ISSUE. 

Let us face the issue squarely. A 
great militant question challenges the 
women of the race. It rises from sweat¬ 
shops, and factories, and brothels, and 
mines, and molten furnaces. It is the 


MOTHEKS OF MEN 


27 


cry of the city and it is the cry of the 
town. This is the question: ^^What are 
you going to do ahont it?’’ 

There are two possible answers to the 
question. One is the answer of tradi¬ 
tion, and the answer of tradition is that 
woman’s political helplessness is her 
power, that woman’s weakness is her 
strength. The method that this answer 
suggests, is, in the last analysis, the 
method of seduction. Not necessarily, 
not generally, gross, immoral seduction, 
but the seduction of smiles and tears, 
the seduction of the wheedler and the 
clinging vine. 

The other answer is the answer of 
woman’s strength, and it opens the road 
of equality by which, in all the complex¬ 
ities of modern life, the sexes shall com¬ 
plement each other. 

Shall it be a resolution or a vote? I 
would rather have my wife and mother 
and sisters and daughter go into the 
polling-booth with a clean American 


28 


MOTHERS OF MEN 


ballot than to the political boss, with 
tearful intercessions—a political boss 
who would very likely have eyes for only 
their physical charms. 

Which of the two answers is the fair, 
clean, honest one? Which is the Amer¬ 
ican ansAver? Which is the right an¬ 
swer? 

What is society? Who are society? 
Government ought to be society’s best 
expression of itself. It cannot be if so¬ 
ciety’s morally better part does not 
speak. What is governmenty in the last 
analysis? Government is an insti¬ 
tution of laws, powers, functions, 
and spirit. And hoAV is government 
achieved? No man has ever weighed a 
prayer, or fathomed a tear, or valued a 
smile; but government is not by tears, 
nor prayers, nor smiles;—government 
is by votes. 

GOVERNMENT BY VOTES. 

Prayers as numberless as the sands 


MOTHEKS OF MEN 


29 


on the seashore have reached the Al¬ 
mighty’s throne, supplicating the de¬ 
struction of the liquor traffic. An ocean 
of tears has flowed, a billion hearts 
have broken; all the wiles of frantic 
mothers ready to sell their lives, if not 
to give their souls, have been employed 
that saloon doors might be closed for¬ 
ever, and to-day the rum institution 
still rests in the protecting shelter of a 
masculine dollar sign. Only hy stain- 
less dallots shall we ever achieve a 
stainless flag. When the women of 
America are granted the voting-priv¬ 
ileges of citizenship, we will bury the 
liquor traffic beneath an avalanche of 
votes, deeper than the foundations of 
the earth! 

WILL NOT CURE ALL ILLS. 

But enthusiasm must not lead us into 
unwarranted hopes. Woman’s suffrage 
will not solve at once all the ills of the 
race. It is hardly fair to require worn- 


30 


MOTHERS OF MEN 


en to correct in a few decades the ac¬ 
cumulated masculine mistakes of un¬ 
counted generations. They will commit 
follies; they will make mistakes; they 
will go astray. Even we of the ^^supe- 
rior” sex have committed political fol¬ 
lies, made mistakes, and gone astray. 
^^Democracy is at best a succession of 
stumbles forward. But democracy is 
society’s last recourse, since all other 
philosophies of government have been 
tried and found wanting.” And with¬ 
out votes for women democracy is an 
attempt to walk by hopping on one leg. 

WHAT SUFFRAGE HAS ALREADY DONE. 

But let no one think that suffrage 
where it is in the process of demonstra¬ 
tion is a failure. *In the State of Wash¬ 
ington at least nine progressive laws 
must be credited largely to woman-suf¬ 
frage, in Oregon twelve, in Utah thir- 

*This was the legislative situation in the suffrage 
States in 1913. 



MOTHEKS OF MEN 


31 


teen, in Colorado sixteen, in Idaho nine, 
in Wyoming nine, and in California 
nineteen. These laws have to do with 
the home, the school, reform institu¬ 
tions and asylums, juvenile courts, pure 
foods and drugs, working conditions of 
men, women, and children, public health 
and morals, conservation of natural re¬ 
sources, and the greatest conservation 
of all—the conservation of humanity. 
In nearly all of the suffrage States the 
age of consent has been raised to eigh¬ 
teen years. It is hard to realize that in 
some instances it used to be as low as 
seven years, and that it is still as low as 
twelve years in a few States. 

The blows of woman-suffrage fall nat¬ 
urally for humanity’s uplift. Woman- 
suffrage strikes and will strike against 
child labor and white slavery, for moth¬ 
ers’ pensions and vocational training 
in public schools, for the establishment 
of public parks and for the shortening 
to a proper length of the hours of toil. 


32 


MOTHEKS OF MEN 


And it will speed tlie day when women 
Avill say to men, in the words of Dean 
Sumner of Chicago: ^^No longer shall 
you exploit my sex in vicious marriage 
selection. Children of women no longer 
shall he compelled to suffer with blind 
eyes, twisted limbs, and idiotic brains 
because of the sins of their fathers.” 
The double standard of morality must 
go, and the immoral dance and immod¬ 
est dress, leading reasons why boys go 
wrong, must not survive. 

ARE WE FAIR? 

But I am charged with unfairness. 
Have I not ignored many of the strong, 
direct arguments against woman-suf¬ 
frage? Thus far I have tried to deal 
with basic principles. A mass of inci¬ 
dental contentions I have brushed 
aside. 

Should the responsibilities of the 
vote be thrust upon women who do not 
want it, who are opposed to having it? 


MOTHEES OF ME]N[ 


33 


Yes, if woman suffrage is right. The 
only time a male citizen has any right 
deliberately to remain away from the 
polls is when the candidates or princi¬ 
ples before the people give him no op¬ 
portunity to express himself, do not in 
any way represent him. Even then it is 
a tragedy» Any citizen who stays away 
from the polls for any other reason than 
conscience or physical disability should 
be temporarily disfranchised. We who 
enjoy for ourselves and our children the 
benefits of a free government are re¬ 
quired by the moral law, and ought to 
be required by the law of the land, to 
pay the price of our liberties. Only 
thus can worthy government survive. 

Will not men lose the spirit of chiv¬ 
alry when we disturb the so-called bal¬ 
ance of the sexes? Had I less confi¬ 
dence in true manhood, I might concede 
the point. 

As to women serving on juries, they 
have from the beginning handed down 


34 


MOTHERS OF MEN 


the most vital judgments of the race, 
and as rulers, from the standpoint of 
administration, I know of no queens in 
history who altogether failed. Many 
succeeded in spite of frightful odds. 
Even Cleopatra was less a failure than 
Antony. She did not desert her coun¬ 
try. 


TEACHERS OF PATRIOTISM. 

Men have been wofully slow in dis¬ 
covering that women, to whom by com¬ 
mon consent is delegated the major por¬ 
tion of the moral, religious, education¬ 
al, and patriotic training of the youth, 
are actually deprived of the one prac¬ 
tical text-book by which the vital les¬ 
sons of citizenship are taught. 

We will agree with Mrs. LaFollette 
that ^^the training of the children is the 
peculiar province of women.’’ And the 
complexities of modern life are increas¬ 
ing tremendously the burden of woman¬ 
hood at this most strategic point. To 


MOTHEES OF MEN 


35 


a greater or less extent every man of 
the twentieth century is a travelling 
man, an itinerant. And when he is at 
home, he is n’t at home. He is off in the 
morning before the children are up, and 
without what used to be an American 
institution—the family altar (God pity 
us for the loss of it; God speed the day 
of its return). He takes his lunch 
down-town or out of a basket by the 
side of the track, and reaches home at 
night after the little ones are tucked 
away. This is the daily schedule of the 
average masculine American. 

Thus far we have demanded of wom¬ 
en, in the training of our sons for citi¬ 
zenship, that they not only carry the 
greater portion of our load, but that 
they give what they themselves do not 
possess, that they impart what they 
themselves have not received. That 
mothers have borne and reared presi¬ 
dents and other honorable men in spite 
of the terrific handicap is a glorious evi- 


36 


MOTHEKS OF MEN 


dence of tlie power of womanliood, but 
a very meau argument to use against 
suffrage. 

CO-PARTNERS IN THE STATE. 

We must remember, too, that when a 
husband and wife do not grow together, 
they grow apart. In proportion as hus¬ 
band and wife have mutual interests, 
the years bind their hearts and blend 
their lives. The privileges and respon¬ 
sibilities of citizenship have and should 
have a large place in the development 
of the normal man, and men and women 
will not be so well mated as the Creator 
intended they should be until women 
are men’s co-partners in the state. 

As to the great economic questions of 
the hour, the tariff for instance, it is 
not hard to concede to women the same 
degree of aptitude and knowledge man¬ 
ifested by the average masculine states¬ 
man of present-day public life. 

John Kendrick Bangs saj^s that the 


MOTHERS OF MEN 


37 


polling-place is not a fit place for wom¬ 
en to enter—when only men are around; 
and I agree. 

Women have led personally some of 
the mightiest movements in human 
progress. Recall Joan of Arc, Mary 
Lyon, Frances Willard, Mrs. Stevens, 
and Jane Addams. Women have been 
the fountainheads of every great move¬ 
ment; they have borne the soldiers of 
every reform, the captains of every 
emancipation; and this is greater than 
the bearing of arms. 

THE ^^BRAVEST BRAVERY.” 

But be careful how you apply the test 
of ‘^bravest bravery,” my masculine in¬ 
terrogator. I have come up through the 
cosmopolitan school of the average 
American young man. I have seen cour¬ 
age, the courage of the gridiron and the 
hunt, the courage that beards the char¬ 
acter-assassin in his political lair of 
graft, the courage that marches in 


38 


MOTHEKS OF MEN 


khaki, beneath streaming banners and 
behind pounding drums, and I have 
seen the courage of the humdrum—the 
rarest of all; but I never saw courage 
until a brown-eyed bit of feminine pure 
gold, brave enough to say ‘^Yes’’ when 
I wooed her in an old Ohio homestead,— 
the mother of my children, God bless 
her!—showed it to me. 

Do you insist that I go to the inexor¬ 
able end with my argument? Do you 
say. Equal at the polls, then equal in 
toil, equal in vices? When true woman¬ 
hood carries a hod, she carries it with 
all the dignity of a queen; but where 
true men are, she Avill never again carry 
a hod. Equal in vices? No man says 
that, for God made true womanhood 
different. 


THE LAST QUESTION. 

And now I have reached my last ques¬ 
tion. It was the last question I faced 
before I surrendered to woman-suffrage. 


MOTHEES OF MEN 


39 


By easy stages I liad passed the place 
where I said, When all women or a 
great majority of them, want the ballot, 
then they ought to have it. The smaller 
questions and objections no longer trou¬ 
bled me, but this very real problem con¬ 
fronted me: Will suffrage defeminize 
women? Will it take away the tender 
touch, render coarse the soft note, dry 
the tear of sympathy, and deaden the 
mother heart? Had I been compelled 
to find an affirmative answer to this 
question, no power could make me urge 
‘^votes for women.’^ 

A LITTLE JOURNEY HOME. 

Last summer I went home—back to 
the old home. Back where a great city 
stands by a beautiful Oregon river and 
a snow-crowned mountain looks down 
from a sapphire sky. It was the Fourth 
of July, and there was a parade. I have 
seen many parades, many Fourth of 
July parades. I have seen many pa- 


40 


MOTHEKS OF MEN 


rades in that, my native city. One that 
I remember especially I viewed from 
my father’s shoulder, when the presi¬ 
dent came to town. But east or west or 
north or south I had never before seen 
a Fourth of July parade like that pa¬ 
rade. 

First in line came the city’s ^^blue- 
coats,” filling the street. Following the 
battalion of police walked with head 
erect the mayor, and under his arm was 
a Bible! Behind the mayor walked the 
more than one hundred boys of his Sun¬ 
day-school class, and each lad carried a 
Bible. Behind the marching boys came 
a military band playing ^^Onward, 
Christian Soldiers,” and behind the 
band trudged and sang twelve thousand 
men, women, and children from the Sun¬ 
day schools of Portland, Oregon. A 
Fourth of July parade? Yes. And the 
reason? A few months before, for the 
first time in history, the women of Port¬ 
land voted. They went to the polls and 


MOTHEES OF MEN 


41 


elected a reform administration. They 
swept the city clean. My mother and 
my sister helped. Father cast his one 
vote, and the women of his family cast 
their two! The great, good men of the 
city had tried again and again. Stand¬ 
ing alone they had failed. The day that 
saw women vote for the first time in the 
metropolis of Oregon was Portland’s 
great emancipation-day. 

MOTHER HAD NOT CHANGED. 

That night I went to bed in the old 
home, and by my side slept a little fel¬ 
low, bearing my name and carrying my 
blood in his veins. Just such a little 
fellow as I was before I grew up and 
went away. Midnight came, and I had 
not slept. My heart was stirred by a 
hundred emotions, and my mind was 
memory’s picture gallery. Then across 
the threshold of the quiet room swept, 
soft as an angel, a figure of white. The 
cold comes down at night in the North- 


42 


MOTHEKS OF 


west. sweltering there through 

sleepless, humid terrors! Mother 
feared that I might be uncovered and 
chilled in my sleep. Often she had 
found me thus. Close by my bed she 
came, and in the dim moonlight that 
crept under the blinds I saw her stoop¬ 
ing low. I closed my eyes. I felt her 
fingers touch the coverlet. She tucked 
it deftly—then a pause—and then, as 
light as a breath from the Milky Way, 
her lips brushed my forehead. Mothery 
voting citizen of Oregon, had not 
changed. 

To-day she is as tender as ever, as 
true and brave and pure and wise as 
ever. But she is stronger now, and 
more potent. She is a ruler in a city 
and a State. Her voice is a voice that 
counts and is counted. Where yester¬ 
day it spoke only to plead, to-day it 
speaks, for every interest of home and 
country, with authority. 


MOTHEKS OF ME^^- 


43 


THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 

And so here is the conclusion of the 
whole matter. The ballot will be a 
weapon of uplift and freedom in the 
brave hands of the Mothers of Men. It 
will smite the greed that capitalizes 
childhood; it will open a way out of 
cotton-fields, factories, and mines into 
God’s open country of birds and fiowers; 
and it will swing wide the barred doors 
of knowledge. It will beat back the 
avarice that makes women barren, the 
red light of shame will grow dim be¬ 
fore it, and the iniquitous double stand¬ 
ard of morals will not prevail against 
it. It will strike for pure foods and 
drugs, for a minimum and living wage, 
and for the new freedom that makes no 
man a despot and every man a king. 

It will hear first the call of life, and 
when it has heard that call the battle¬ 
ments of gold will not be able to with¬ 
stand it. It will protect the defenceless 


44 


MOTHERS OF ME:N^ 


and weak, and the strong will feel its 
thrust only when strength is mean and 
power vicious. 

When its day has fully come, the na¬ 
tions will no longer tremble beneath the 
tread of armies marching down to war, 
for the soldier-bearing women of the 
world will overthrow the bloody altar 
of Mars, and to-morrow those who to¬ 
day bear arms for kings and emperors 
will carry the benign burdens of a con¬ 
structive and universal peace. 

It will be an all-powerful weapon, for 
it is the love weapon of the world; it 
will not fail, for in the hand that grasps 
it is the passion of motherhood, and in 
the arm that wields it is the strength of 
the Lord God of hosts. 


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